State Dem Convention

     

On the 16th Lisa and I packed up and headed to San Antonio for the Texas State Democratic Convention.   Lisa became a Delegate a couple of months ago and so reservations were made more than a month ago at the Holiday Inn near the River Walk in the downtown area.  And we were less than a mile from the Alamo Dome.

       Hard lessons learned.  Even though I have regularly walked a couple of hard treadmill miles several times a week at the little AC gym in Rockport, This proved to be little preparation for the heat.  Thursday night we covered a couple of miles downtown to attend a "pre convention" meeting.  The Motel provided free shuttle service to the downtown area but that ended early in the evening.   So we decided to walk back.  The temperature hovered around a hundred the entire day and into the night with the indice up around 110.  Recently turning 62 reminded me all to well my days of being invincible are long over.  My wife who rarely walks for the exercise benefit had to stand by as I just couldn't hack more than a few blocks at a time without stopping to rest.  But then she is a  freak of nature when it comes to the heat.  I've nicknamed her "Demon" given that she also complains of the cold when it sits around 85.     I was completely undone when we got back from that walk and I took the next day off.  


Photoshopped Bernie
  

   Several people made the walk each day in a beautiful park like setting lining the sidewalk for most of the way.  Were the temps more around the seventies, it might have been a little thing I'd have enjoyed immensely.  As it were, I didn't dare and marveled at people in suits, complete with jackets making that walk in the heat. So I'm pretty convinced all Texans are "Demons"  Unbelievable.

    Second lesson, if one has never witnessed politics, doing so at a state convention is an eye opening experience.  From the initial meeting at the Grand Hyatt crammed in a less than accommodating room with a couple of thousand people in order to be schooled on resisting insider tactics.    An example of this is compared to say you buy a Volkswagon.  Now that you are the proud owner of a Volkswagon, seems like almost everyone else is too.  It's the same thing.  Being schooled on a couple of insider tricks.  Like rodents, they turn up everywhere and often.  

       The Amazing thing is:  Texas, like a lot of other Conservative states passed some highly progressive recommendations for the DNC that is occurring in Philly in July.  I'm not giving it up but this link probably answers most questions.  Speaks well for Bernie's folks who stayed and fought back hard.  Hard not to notice that the hardline mainstream weren't getting a bit irked.

      Six hundred bucks for Auto Insurance and that's the cheapest we can find for one old Bronco with two hundred thousand miles on it and a modest 2002 Silverado 2500.  And that's with no wrecks, tickets or underage Drivers.  Oh and that includes a 90's era RV that I also just had to drop 800 bucks on for a new AC.  The little portable we bought to sustain us the Winter couldn't even bring it down to 90 when the temps started rising.  Plus another 450 or so into tires for the tired old Bronco that just keeps huffing away.   Jesus' Kristo how does anyone make it on ten bucks an hour.   Fifteen is going to be hard enough.

     The joke of this is I recall my buddy floated the stupid idea that I might want to work in the private sector of Corrections.  I'd already been laid off my planned second career Airline job so I checked out some job descriptions.  Yeah, for thirteen fitty they wanted a four year degree and five years experience.  That's thirteen fitty an hour folks for a sad sad business that makes their CEO's some high rollers.   No wonder there are a lot of pissed off folks in the world.  As one guy put it "The pitchforks are coming".  I don't think literally but meh....it may be.

  And so with replacing the refrigerator a couple of months ago and the AC this month, I've pretty much come full circle in the little trailer.  I used to sweat what would happen if some of those expensive items went out.  Now I got my answer.  Get the best damn deal you can for a used reefer because y'know damn good and well they don't make them in the dimensions you need and haven't for quite some time.  They want you to buy a new one every two three years.  Then take out the door, knock a couple of holes on either side of it and somehow with the help of Crisco and spit, man and woman noover that sumbitch inside.  And that turned out to be the easy part.  Buuuuut it's been humming away pretty good the last several months.  The AC, buy the sumbitch and hire a guy to stick it in.

   So, yeah done here.  Be talking from the road next month....